


THE WORLD BUILT FOR TWO

by AgnesClementine



Series: FIGHTERS OF THE GOOD FIGHT [13]
Category: Supernatural, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Case Fic, Fluff, Honest to god fluff my guys, I don't know, M/M, it's way fluffier than intended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24513523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgnesClementine/pseuds/AgnesClementine
Summary: Dean looks back at when they first met; how Diego was one big paradoxical enigma that Dean just couldn’t figure out. He was something that Dean couldn’t wrap his head around.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Dean Winchester
Series: FIGHTERS OF THE GOOD FIGHT [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1301294
Comments: 243
Kudos: 271





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *shamefully crawls in* Hiiii. I live. Uh. Yeah, I've got nothing to say for myself. I suck.
> 
> Anyway, I believe we all need something light during this shitstorm and I hope this will at least lift your spirits a bit. Be safe, everyone <3 <3 <3

“Relax,” Diego tells him in the warmth of the afternoon sun, draped over his lap on the motel room couch and pressing the word into the skin of Dean’s throat.

After the…apology, and the crying, and embarrassingly long hugging when Dean didn’t seem to be able to pry his fingers off Diego- they got in the car and they drove and they found a motel. And then they decided to relax.

And Dean- goddamn, Dean’s hasn’t been able to relax since the fire. There’s always something in the shadows, there’s always smoke lingering somewhere when he takes in a breath. But Diego has a way with him, combs and plucks at his nerves with nimble fingers, soothes them with a warm, soft touch and Dean finds himself melting. He sinks into the lumpy cushions as if they were clouds, lets his head fall back against the backrest, and tucks his fingers under Diego’s shirt.

Dean draws his thumb over the jut of Diego’s hipbone, Diego sighs, presses closer. He drops a trail of kisses up the line of Dean’s throat, pecks his mouth lightly.

They are not even doing anything; it’s just a lazy day, and Diego is sleepy and warm and he lets Dean wind his arms around his ribs and bump his fingers over the ridges of his spine. He looks tired and happy and Dean could get drunk on it; maybe even is already.

Diego’s arms loop around his neck as he nuzzles closer.

They are not- well, fine, yeah, they _are_ cuddling. But it’s not some schmoopy, touchy-feely cuddling, okay? It’s just- Diego. Diego and his stupidly pretty face and his pliant body against Dean. Diego who…loves him. And whom Dean loves back.

 _Jesus fuck_.

He kisses Diego’s cheek.

They bump foreheads, accidentally. But Diego just leans into him and Dean just leans into the couch and they just cuddle. They can relax. They can do this.

Diego shuffles his hips closer, says, “Fucking relax already,” with a soft jab of his index finger between Dean’s ribs.

“I’m relaxing,” he says back, closes his eyes to the ceiling and traces patterns on the small of Diego’s back.

“Liar,” Diego responds lightly.

“Pants on fire,” Dean shoots back absently and is rewarded by a snort next to his ear. A soft puff of air that ghosts over his skin and then Diego’s lips are brushing over the juncture of his jaw.

Dean looks back at when they first met; how Diego was one big paradoxical enigma that Dean just couldn’t figure out. He was something that Dean couldn’t wrap his head around. But he’s starting to understand that maybe Diego is something he only has to wrap his arms around- and that’s gonna be enough for both of them.

  * ····



The phone starts ringing in the idle hours of the early morning. It rouses Dean and has him leaning over Diego to grab it from the nightstand before Diego even stirs.

“Hello?” He asks, sleep-thick, plops down on the bed with a hand between Diego’s shoulder blades. He rubs his thumb over the soft fabric of Diego’s shirt when he finally wakes up with a questioning grumble, face still pushed against the pillow.

“Dean Winchester?” An unfamiliar voice asks.

Dean frowns; he’s starting to collect his own list of connections but it’s mainly hunters either Dad or Bobby worked before. People he at least knows to some extent.

“Speaking,” he says slowly. At his tone, Diego looks up at him with a curious frown. “Who’s this?” He adds.

“Terry Pine, I worked a case with John up in Michigan in 2000. He gave me your number.”

Dean starts up his sleep-muddled brain, deems it truth; he remembers the black dog case Dad did with another hunter there. And it’s not the first time Dad redirected a hunter to Dean, already wrapped up in his own case.

He asks, “How can I help you?”

“I’m working a haunting up in Grand Forks and I could use an extra pair of hands,” Terry tells him.

Dean’s eyebrows jump. “No offense, but a _haunting_?”

Surprisingly, Terry chuckles, “Embarrassing, but yeah. To be honest with you, I don’t know what the hell is happening. Another set of eyes might be helpful.”

He glances down at Diego. He’s turned to his side and propped his head up on his hand. He arches his eyebrows at Dean.

“How about two sets of eyes?”

“Even better.”

“Alright,” Dean says into the speaker, then mouths, “Case,” at Diego.

“Uh, Grand Forks, that’s Minnesota, right?”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.”

They say goodbye and then Dean hangs up, lies back down, and lets the phone fall on his chest with a dull plop.

“So- a case?” Diego asks around a yawn. “In Minnesota?”

“Yeah,” Dean responds through his own yawn. “The guy knows Dad and apparently he’s struggling with a ghost.”

“Huh,” Diego says and scrubs a hand over his face, “we gotta get going?”

Dean looks at him, sleepy-soft, and decides they can make good time if he really floors it once they get on the road.

“In an hour or so,” he says.

Diego hums, acknowledging and lets his head fall back onto the pillow with a whoosh. His head rests near Dean’s shoulder and Dean breathes out, relaxes into the mattress and the warmth for a bit longer.

  * ····



They’re eating and driving- which is an accident waiting to happen, according to everyone Dean knows. He’s got one hand on the wheel at all times if that gives anyone some peace, and Diego is the one actually holding all the food.

Dean grabs a few fries from the bag in Diego’s lap and shoves them in his mouth, then picks up where he left off in their conversation.

“So basically, what you’re saying is that you can make _anything_ hit _anything_ that you want?”

Diego’s eyebrows knit and pull up. “Well,” he starts, thinking, “anything I can lift. I can’t just make things move with my mind.”

“No?” Dean figured that his power is some kind of telekinesis.

“Nope,” Diego says, shrugs. “It was Dad’s working theory for a while but, uh, all that came from it were shouting matches and headaches.”

It’s so casual that Dean almost forgets it’s not normal; at least by other people’s standards. Not for the first time, he tries to imagine how it was, the life Diego had before they met, practically alone in that..family. Dean never had much while growing up, but he always had Sam. And yeah, Sam left him, suddenly.

But Diego was losing grip on his siblings, watched them get farther and farther away for years while living just a room away from him. Just trying to compare what he feels when he thinks about Sam now to what Diego had to endure makes his chest hurt.

Diego huffs. “Get that cloudy looks off your face,” he demands.

Dean clears his throat, asks him lightly, “Can I get some water here if I do?”

He doesn’t have to look to know Diego rolled his eyes at him. He sees him twist in his periphery, looking around.

“Uh, I think we’re out of the water,” Diego informs him. His voice takes on a sweetly indulgent tilt then, like he’s talking to a child, “Want a milkshake instead?”

And Dean scowls, “What? No. Are you sure there’s no more water? There were two bottles.”

“Yeah. You drank them. Related to that,” Diego gestures with his plastic milkshake cup at him, “don’t you have to pee?”

Dean… _maybe_ has to pee. But they have a schedule to maintain.

“I can hold it.”

“Uh-huh.”

A beat of silence, then-

“Are you _really sure_ there’s no more wat-“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, just drink the damn milkshake!” Diego exclaims and shoves the cup in his face.

Dean only complies because the straw was dangerously close to jabbing him in the eye. He takes a sip and feels sweetness and a tinge of salt on his tongue.

“Dude, were you dipping your fries in this?” He asks, mildly grossed out.

“Yeah,” Diego says and takes a sip for himself. If the taste bothers him, he doesn’t show it.

Dean makes sure the judgment and his opinion are visible on his face.

To spite him, Diego takes off the lid from his cup, lets it dangle anchored by the straw, and makes a show of dragging a fry through the pink, creamy drink before tossing it in his mouth.

Dean dramatically fake-gags.

  * ····



They arrive at Grand Forks true to Dean’s word, around 4 pm, and absolutely dying to get out of the car. There was a short stop at the gas station when Dean caved and raced out to use the restroom, but otherwise, they spent the whole day in the car.

In the parking lot of the motel, a lone figure stands, leaning against a dark blue pick-up truck. He’s dressed in what’s essentially a trademark hunters’ wardrobe and Dean can just pick out the beginnings of grey at his temples when they get out to meet him.

“Dean?” He asks.

“Terry?” Dean asks back and they shake hands. He’s got a solid, firm grip.

Dean feels Diego walking over to stand next to him. He jerks his chin in Diego’s direction, tells Terry, “This is Diego, the other extra pair of eyes.”

Terry shakes his hand too, tells them, “You two look beat, how about you get some shut-eye and we can get started tomorrow?”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Diego says and rolls his neck. Something pops. Everybody ignores it.

Terry grins at them, friendly and easy-going. He greets them then, pats the bumper of the pick-up truck affectionately, and heads over to his room.

Diego and he drag their cramped bodies to the front desk and get their own room, then walk to it sluggishly, just waiting to fall into the bed. And not in a sexy way.

…At least not right away.

And really, depending on the mattress.

Diego chucks his duffle on the floor next to the foot of the bed and bends down with a groan, stretching his back.

Dean sits at the edge of the bed, watches him appreciatively, the solid, lean lines of him.

“You done ogling me?” Diego pipes up.

Dean grins, “Nope.” _Never._

He tips back to lean on his elbows and grins wider when Diego comes over to straddle him. He leans down, kisses him full on the mouth with slow, playful brushes of lips, smiling. Dean lets himself drop down on his back, pulls Diego along, and kisses him back.

As it turns out, the mattress is not so bad.


	2. 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I have an update with a smidge of plot and a sprinkle of more soft bois.   
> Irrelevant, but I put two needles through my ear two days ago. It was an Experience. I'd do it again but I kindaaa feel like my parents need time to recover from this first XD
> 
> Right, anyway, let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

“So,” Dean asks when they sit down in the booth with Terry the next morning, “what’s going on?”

They got up early to get a head-start on the case. If the case really is as screwy as Terry made it seem, Dean would like to tackle it as soon as possible and be done with it and out of here before dinner, thank you. There are few things that all hunters hate- and complicated hunts are one of them.

Terry scratches his chin, says, “To be honest with you boys, I’m not sure. There have been two murders this far. Two teens that were found drowned in their bedrooms. Not a drop of water was found on the crime scenes, but the EMF detector went nuts.”

“So a ghost,” Diego says. He’s sitting next to Dean, elbows touching, and he’s warm and relaxed.

Terry nods.

“I feel like there’s only one thing missing,” he says, voice distant like he’s pondering it at the very moment, “if we figure it out, we’ll find our ghost.”

“Alright,” Dean agrees, “suggestions about where we should start?”

“Police station, probably, you boys should comb through the case files. Maybe you’ll find something I missed. After that, hell, wherever the clues take you.”

“Right,” Diego agrees with a frown. Dean catches the contemplative shadow in his eyes, but he’s going to ask about that in private.

They order breakfast and Terry walks them through the events, tells them about the victims. Two boys, seniors in local high school, were found drowned in their beds hours apart. Lungs filled to the brim with water and rooms as dry as deserts. They didn’t run in the same circles, didn’t have any mutual friends, didn’t have the same interests. Nothing that tied them together. Except for their mysterious deaths.

  * ····



They pose as reporters for Weekly News and the station gives them reluctant access to the files. A tired-looking, redhead secretary leads them to the archives and leaves them with a warning to put everything back to the right place.

So here they are, crammed in a small, musty room packed with boxes from all sides. There’s a single lightbulb throwing weak, yellowish light over them and a tiny window casting harsh rays of light that cut through the room and hit Diego in the face, making him squint.

They’re leafing through the respective vic folders when Dean finally says, “So. What was that in the diner?”

Diego squints up at him, then shifts slightly to the side so the Sun is not hitting his eyes. “Hm?”

“In the diner with Terry. You seemed, I don’t know- suspicious?”

Diego frowns.

“You didn’t think it was weird?” He asks.

“Didn’t think what was weird?”

“What he said. Uh,” Diego’s eyebrows pull together as he tries to remember. “The “wherever the clues take _you_ ” thing. Like he was implying that we’ll be working this case on our own.”

“Huh,” Dean says, thinking about it. Diego is right; that was weird.

“What, you think he’s gonna ditch us? Why’d he do that?”

Diego shrugs, “Maybe he’s setting us up? I don’t know. Do these things happen between hunters?”

Dean blinks, “I have no idea.”

To be honest, Dean doesn’t really think Terry would cross them over like this; as far as Dean’s aware, the case he did with Dad went off without a hitch and he doesn’t appear to dislike either John or them. So, really, he doesn’t have a reason to set them up. At least Dean hopes so.

Diego pouts briefly, sighs, and then casts his gaze back down to continue reading.

The light now falls on his cheek and makes the scar on his cheekbone shine. It’s pale now, silvery, compared to the warm, tan color of his skin. Dean remembers it being soft, faded pink when they first met; just a testament of still being somewhat fresh. Again, of course, compared to now. Almost seven years passed, he realizes, somewhat distantly. He’s known Diego for more than half a decade and that knowledge should scare him- probably would, if it was anyone else- but instead, it just warms him. They managed to stick together for seven years; having each others’ backs, being friends. Hell, being _this_ before they were probably consciously aware of it.

Diego, probably sensing Dean’s eyes on him, looks up again. “What?”

“What “what”?”

Diego squints- it has nothing to do with light this time.

“What’s up with that face?”

Dean quickly smoothes out his face from whatever it was doing, says, “What face? Nothing.” It doesn’t go unnoticed and Diego is not impressed.

He squints harder, his eyes turning into suspicious little slits, and tells Dean seriously, “We are _not_ having sex here.”

And, well.

Dean points a finger at him. “That was not what I was thinking about- but now you’ve planted that idea in my head.”

Really, you suggest fooling around in a police office once-

“And besides, I know you wanted to say yes.”

Diego scrunches up his nose. “Yeah, I’m well aware of that. And I hate having to says no, so stop nagging me.”

He doesn’t really mean it, Dean can tell by his voice, so he says jokingly, “Aw, c’mon, it’s on my bucket list. Don’t you have a bucket list, Di?”

Diego arches his eyebrows in amusement. “Sure,” he says indulgently, “but getting arrested for public nudity in a police station while using fake aliases is not on it.”

“Ehhh, it’s not really public nudity, though,” Dean says, “I mean, going on the logic that the station is not really a public space, right?”

Diego frowns, “Huh. Well, people are not forbidden to come in. So that makes it a public space, no?”

“When you put it like that…” Dean mutters, scratching his head.

They sit in silence for a second longer before remembering that yeah, they are here to actually do some work, crap.

They go back to reading. But Dean is definitely going to google the police station thing later.

After a while, they switch files and, soon, Diego kicks his ankle lightly to get his attention, staring intently at a photo in his hand. “Hey, did you notice the bracelet?”

“Huh?” Dean squeezes in next to him to peer down at the crime scene photo. It’s a shot from the doorway of the bedroom; an unmade, empty bed- the body has already been carried off- and the nightstand. There’s a bedside lamp on it, a phone, a notebook, and a thin, braided bracelet.

“Yeah.” The kid was a jock, so Dean found the accessory a bit strange; it didn’t fit with the rest of the things in the room.

Diego sits down on one of the boxes on the ground, sets his file on his lap, and reaches for the one in Dean’s hands.

“Let me see the photos again,” he says and starts shifting through them with purpose. He plucks out one and compares it with the one in his hand.

Dean leans down- and spies an identical bracelet on the kid’s wrist, hanging lifelessly off the edge of the bed.

“Huh,” he says, “there’s our connection.”

  * ····



The bracelets had to be homemade because they can’t find them anywhere in town. The question is; how did they end up having them and how do they tie up in all of this?

They go to the city archive to dig through some public records next. Dean still doesn’t understand what’s going on here, but searching for other kids their age who drowned feels like a good place to start.

There’s not a lot of them. A few cases spanning over the last 30 years, most of them connected to suicides committed in their own bathrooms- but there are a few that happened in the lake that’s a part of the private property on the east side of the city. Kids would go camping, get drunk, fall in, and drown.

“These could all be taken as violent deaths,” Diego says with disgust at the sheer amount of suspects they suddenly have.

Dean groans, “I know.”

This is crazy, it will take them ages to sort through this list.

“Shit,” he says, “okay, let’s, I don’t know. Let’s figure out which ones were cremated and work our way from there?”

Diego harrumphs but doesn’t disagree.

Okay.

Dean fishes out his phone and calls Terry because they sure as fuck won’t be doing this on their own.

  * ····



“-yes, thank you. Goodbye.”

Diego tosses his phone on the table, atop the heap of papers that cover it, crosses off a name from his list with a quick stroke of a pen, and sighs loudly.

“That was the last one for me. I’m down to seven,” he says.

Dean groans. “I have five.”

“Three over here,” Terry tells them.

In Dean’s opinion, that’s still too fucking many.

They spent a better part of the evening calling funeral homes and families- something Dean is never too thrilled to do. Who the fuck wants a stranger to ask them how their loved ones were put to rest and who the fuck wants to be that stranger?

Diego steals a cold fry from his paper plate.

“Dude,” Dean tells him, more out of a principle than any real objection. And then, upon seeing that Diego didn’t finish his burger, asks, “Hey, you gonna finish that?”

Diego passes over his paper plate wordlessly.

“At least we made progress,” Terry says, sounding genuinely pleased by that.

Diego grumbles in agreement, chewing. He reaches for another fry and then drops it back on the plate after noticing a side of it is covered in ketchup.

Dean rolls his eyes. “You drown them in milkshake but you won’t eat them if they have a drop of ketchup of them,” he grouches affectionately.

“Don’t kink shame my fry-eating habits,” Diego responds flatly because this is a recurring topic in their bickering schedule, “besides, ketchup is gross.”

“You want extra on your pizza!”

“That’s an exception,” Diego argues.

Dean makes an “I-can’t-believe-you” face.

Then he remembers Terry is still there. He’s watching them in amusement.

“You boys knew each other for long?” He asks them.

“Uh, yeah,” Dean responds, feeling a bit flushed.

Terry just nods, still smiling. “That’s nice,” he says. “You don’t get to have a lot of people in your life in our line of work. Gotta keep the ones we have close.”

Dean clears his throat, nods along with Diego.

“Yeah,” he agrees, dragging his eyes over Diego’s pinked cheeks and meeting his eyes, soft and brown. _There’s really no arguing with that._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I got curious about the "police station being a public place or not" thing, looked it up but couldn't find a straight answer right away so I gave up and went back to writing lmao


	3. 3.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I'm bringing an update. ...In a somewhat decent timespan lol. Also, I'm living for how suspicious most of you was/is of Terry XD
> 
> Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

They make a date out of case review, with files and photos spread out around them where they’re sitting cross-legged on the floor.

There are still too many people who have been buried; which means that there are still too many suspects. They can’t know if the ghost will kill again. Besides the bracelets, besides the implications, there is nothing they can latch onto.

Unwillingly, Diego starts thinking about Klaus. It’s been a while since he had; worrying too much is never good and how the last couple of years have been, that’s all Klaus can bring out of him. But now, he thinks. He thinks about whatever it is that Klaus could’ve been doing and he thinks about December when Klaus would sporadically crawl into his bed in the middle of the night, his face, fingers, and toes cold like he’s been standing out in the cold. Diego could never bring himself to ask if he brought any ghosts with him.

The point- or not a point, a tangle, a knot- is that Diego can’t see.

And how horrible it is that he wants to when all it did to Klaus was make him miserable. It feels like a violation of sorts too; that’s not Diego’s. Their powers are all they had growing up, the only thing that was theirs and that wouldn’t change no matter what. Diego doesn’t want to know how it feels when your lungs start burning from the lack of oxygen.

Dean heaves a frustrated sigh and steals a handful of onion rings from Diego’s plate. It’s fine because Diego doesn’t like them anyway and just gets them so Dean could eat them.

“This blows,” Dean says, “hauntings and ghosts are supposed to be simple.”

Diego only hums in agreement, eyes tracing the braided pattern of the bracelets. Three thick threads in blue, purple and green, overlapping and entwining. 

A knock comes to their door. They both peer at it and then Dean clambers to his feet with a groan, swings it open to reveal Terry standing in the hallway. He’s braced against the doorway with one hand, his other holding a scrap of paper, most likely the list of suspects identical to theirs.

“By your faces,” he starts, “and the state of the room, I’m assuming we came to the same conclusion. There’s too fucking many of them.”

“Yeah,” Dean sighs.

Terry scratches his cheek.

“I have an idea,” he says.

Diego prompts him to spit it out with a wave of his hand as he gets up as well.

“It’s crazy, but keep in mind that we don’t exactly have a ton of options.”

“What is it?” Dean asks.

Terry observes them for a quiet second, then he says, “We salt and burn them all.”

Dean speaks first. “You want to salt and burn  _ 15 graves _ ? No offense, but, uh, are you crazy?” He asks incredulously. 

Terry raises his arms, “Just an idea. I know it’s risky, but they are split across three gravesites and between the three of us, we might be able to pull it off in two nights.”

“That doesn’t make it any less risky or insane,” Diego points out. But he can’t deny that that’s really their only option at the moment.

“I know. Look, let’s just...stock up on salt and petrol, and then if we don’t figure out something else by tomorrow evening, we’ll go through with it,” Terry suggests.

Dean sighs heavily, rubbing a knuckle of his thumb between his eyebrows. “It’s a plan,” he says.

“Great,” Terry says with a grimace because despite coming up with the idea, he’s not thrilled with it either. “I’ll make the run, then.”

“Now?” Diego asks.

Terry nods.

Diego grabs his jacket, tells him, “Wait, I’ll go with you.”

“Wow, you’re ditching me? Rude,” Dean comments jokingly when Terry starts walking towards his truck.

“Sorry, Dean. But it’s _ salt _ .”

Dean nods, mock-serious. “Right, right. Of course.”

But then his face sobers up for real because neither of them is completely sold on Terry yet. Dean called his dad, but he didn’t pick up and he still didn’t call back to respond to the voice message Dean left him.

Diego grins though, and shows him the slim blade in the palm of his hand. It’s just a quick flash of metal between his fingers before the blade disappears out of sight but Dean lights up because simple shit like this is what brings him the most joy.

“Don’t drink my mineral water,” Diego tells him and follows after Terry.

He climbs into the cabin in the passenger seat, takes in the smell of spices that lingers in the air. There’s a pair of red fleece dice hanging from the rearview mirror, an empty bottle of Pepsi and a few crumpled fast-food wrappers by Diego’s feet.

Terry catches him looking, says, “Sorry about the mess. Didn’t have anyone hitch a ride with me for a while.”

He sounds somewhat distant and sad so Diego just responds, “Nah, don’t worry about it,” instead of arching his eyebrow like he wants to.

They slide out of the parking lot smoothly, out onto the empty road. The radio is not playing, even though Diego can tell there’s a cassette inserted in the player.

“Your folks are in hunting too?” Terry asks to break the silence.

He noticed this a while back, how everyone assumes you either get into hunting by family or tragedy. 

Though, he guesses he did get into hunting through tragedy. If Ben didn’t die, he never would have left to investigate that werewolf case and he never would have met Dean.

He shakes his head, smiling faintly. “Nah, they, ah, they don’t know.”

Terry  _ ah _ s. 

“How about you?” Diego asks him, derailing the topic from himself.

“There was something fishy going on in the mining tunnel in my town when I was a kid. My old man was a miner and he’d tell me and my brother all these stories. You know the type to scare little kids into behaving?”

Diego nods even though he doesn’t know. The only stories he and his siblings got as kids were hollow promises of being destined for something more. 

Terry continues, “Anyway, some ten years back, I just got back from my last tour overseas- my brother was already done with his and found a job in a shop in our town. He called me up to tell me our old man went off the rails, almost took some idiot’s head off in the woods with a hunting rifle. He said he was hunting a monster.” He scratches his cheek, continues, “So, of course, we think he finally snapped. Digging up coal in the dark all those years can’t be healthy for the mind.”

Diego stays quiet, listens attentively because no other hunter except for Dean ever told him why they started hunting. He doesn’t even know why Bobby started. 

As the silence stretches, Terry lost in his memories, Diego finally asks, “What happened to change your mind?”

Terry’s eyes snap to him, hold contact for a second as he tells Diego, “A pair of teenagers found him in pieces in the mining tunnel.”

_ Fuck. _

“The police said it was a bear- but there ain’t no fucking bears there. So me and my brother go digging. Weird shit starts appearing. All those stories we were told, the missing miners, missing kids, strange creatures living in the woods, preying from between the trees- all fucking happened. So we go out to the fucking mine and we set the whole goddamn place on fire. And then something crawled out, like a bat from hell, scared of the flames.”

“Wendigo,” Diego says, more of a statement than an assumption.

“Wendigo,” Terry nods.

“What did you do?”

“We killed that bastard. It almost got my brother, ripped him up real bad, but we sent it to hell where it belongs. It wasn’t right, that thing.”

Terry’s eyes are dark, haunted by whatever horror he witnessed that day like he’s still waiting for it to come after him. 

The engine rumbles in the night. Diego nudges the Pepsi bottle with his foot; sends it rolling until it ricochets from the door and returns to bump against his foot again.

“What happened to your brother?” Diego asks, then clarifies, “Why isn’t he here with you?”

Terry smiles sadly, “We had a...difference of opinion. I gave him some bad news and he needed space.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

The rest of the drive is silent and Diego’s mind strays back to his siblings. It’s not even anything particular, just stupid things like wondering if Luther is still making airplane models, or if Allison still hates mango. Thinking about Vanya still stings, so he doesn’t linger on her for too long. 

God, if something reached out from the darkness and tore their dad apart, Diego might just shake its hand and say thank you.

He thinks faintly how his siblings would be appalled by that; none of them hold as much venom for Dad as Diego does. Except maybe Klaus. 

They run four stores dry of salt and use three gas stations to load up on gasoline instead of petrol and when Diego reaches for his wallet to pay at the last one, Terry halts him with a hand on his forearm.

“You paid for everything else,” Diego tells him, already holding green bills between his fingers.

“You hang onto your money for now, kid. I’ve got this,” Terry says and heads for the counter. 

Diego watches him, the weary slump of his shoulders like he’s drained of energy and pockets his wallet.

When they get back to the motel, Dean is still awake. He put away all the case files and is waiting for Diego in front of the TV, a beer in hand.

Diego blows out a breath as soon as the door closes behind him, wrestling out of his jacket and boots.

He drops down next to Dean on the cushions, plasters himself to his side and feels Dean’s hand come up to scratch his blunt nails through the short hair in the back of Diego’s head.

“Something happened?” Dean asks him over the murmur of the TV.

Diego detangles his fingers from the neck of the bottle and takes a small sip of beer, not usually a fan of it.

He lets his head drop against Dean’s shoulder and says, “I don’t think Terry is a bad guy, Dean.”

He’s still not completely sure what’s happening, but Terry is on their side.


	4. 4.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heart says "YES" to this series but my brain is a little shit who says "Work on multiple WIPs, you coward." So. Uh. Yeah. 
> 
> Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

They don't find out anything new the next day. Diego combs through the photos once again, hoping to find more clues, something else they missed. Something that could give them an indication who it is they're looking for. But there's nothing. Just two dead boys with matching bracelets. He stares at the photos of them, side by side. One has predominantly blue and purple threads, with green just a few thin strips, and other is more blue and green with less purple. Diego knows they're missing something.

A hand lands on his shoulder. “Diego, you’ve been staring at those for an eternity. C’mon, we’re not gonna find anything else,” Dean tells him, his fingers lightly digging into Diego’s flesh.

Diego exhales, slumps back in his chair.

“There’s something else,” he says, lips downturned, “I just can’t figure out what.”

Dean lets his hand drop and takes a seat next to him, leans over the photos despite the words he just uttered.

“You think that there’s someone else? Like another victim?” He asks. “Wouldn’t the ghost have killed them when it killed these two? He questions, gesturing vaguely at the morgue shots of bodies.

Diego blows out a breath that’s equal parts contempt and frustration. He covers his face with his hands and groans. His thumb finds the scar on his cheekbone and traces over it a few times. “I don’t know,” he says and drop his hands, “I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re missing something that would make this much easier.”

“I wish, man,” Dean admits.

“I mean, it’s weird, right?” Diego asks him, frown pulling at his features, “People don’t just die like that and it’s such a specific way of murdering, you’d think something would’ve popped up by now. And why did it target them? Because they were, what, gay? Because they were hiding it? Because they were a couple at all? It’s not that we’re missing a puzzle piece; we have, like, three pieces, _maybe_ , and the rest of the damn puzzle is nowhere to be found.”

Diego- like Dean- hates being left in the dark and this frustrates him greatly. And he’s not too thrilled about digging up more than one grave tonight; one grave desecration per night is already a pain in the ass.

“Yeah,” Dean agrees, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Fuck,” he says and stands up, tugging at Diego’s sleeve, “c’mon, let’s get out of here.”

Diego arches his eyebrows at him, but allows Dean to pull him up to his feet. “You’re already hungry? He had delivery two hours ago.”

Dean grins at him. “I’m a growing boy, Diego, I need, uh, proteins and that good stuff.”

Behind him, Diego mutters, “If you’re growing, I don’t think you should be in public,” in a tone that is all but innocent and full of innuendo and had Dean barking out a laugh of surprise.

  * ····



They tuck themselves into a corner booth of the first diner that Dean sees, movements coordinated and in sync. A proof of all the time they spent together that allowed them to grow into each other’s space like this.

Dean orders a burger- because of course he does- and Diego just opts for an extra-large serving of fries. He’s still pretty full from their lunch, but he’ll be damned if he’s just going to sit here and watch Dean eat.

“So?” He asks after ordering their drinks and food.

Dean shrugs, “What, I can’t take you out for food just because I want to?”

“Is that why we’re here?”

“…well. No,” Dean admits, “But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t!”

Diego cracks a grin because he knows. As far as Dean is concerned, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach- himself and everyone else included.

“I know.”

Dean caves with a shrug. “We both had to get out of there before we lost our minds.”

Which is true. Diego can get like a dog with a bone sometimes; once he’s got something, he’ll lock down his jaw and won’t let go. It’s a good trait until it isn’t, until it turns into an obsession. It’s a tiny bit of something he had in common with Five; stubborn, self-destructive tendencies.

“Yeah,” he agrees with Dean.

Their ankles hook under the table without a thought, pressed in warm and solid.

  * ····



Diego hates digging graves. Brown, grainy soil bleeds into his pores and the creases of his skin as he digs. The air is damp and the small breeze cooling his sweat is sending a shiver racketing up his spine.

Dean is a few tombstones to his right and Terry is a row away from the two of them, jabbing his shovel into the ground with fervor. He’s pouring all of his energy into this, hurried and determined. Grave after grave after grave; digging without a pause even as the breath leaves his lungs in a labored pant like it’s the last thing he’ll do.

There is something sinister in the air, thick like tar, and it has nothing to do with what they’re doing right now. It’s making the hairs rise on the back of Diego’s neck while he tries to keep his own breathing in tandem with Dean’s. Stuttering in exertion, rushing out in huffs, and sucked back in greedily.

He feels sick to his stomach; the churning prequel to whatever’s hinted in the atmosphere around them.

And Dean notices.

“Hey,” he calls over, peering at Diego under the dim light of his flashlight, “you alright?”

Diego heaves out a breath, sticky and thick, but nods anyway. “Yeah. Just feeling funny.”

“Funny?”

“Yeah, it’s…I don’t know. Just weird. Don’t worry about it.”

Dean frowns in a way that indicates that he will most definitely worry about it. He even opens his mouth to start worrying verbally- but then Terry whisper-shouts, “What’s going on?”

Dean sighs. “Diego’s feeling weird.”

“Weird? Weird how?” Terry pants, still not stopping with the digging.

Diego rolls his eyes. Hard. “God,” he groans, “it’s nothing. Let’s go back to work.”

Terry just grunts in agreement and continues working but Dean pins him with a “we’ll talk about this” look before going back to his own grave.

Diego breathes out and pushes his shovel into the ground. It hits the coffin with a dull thud.

  * ····



They drag themselves into the room aching all over, covered in grave dirt and stinking of smoke and charred bones. Their clothes get discarded on the way to the bathroom and, once inside, they stand under the stream of hot water together, leaning against each other’s body.

The steam makes everything dull around the edges, soft and warm, and they press in close, exhausted and craving sleep. Dean cards his fingers through Diego’s hair, works in the shampoo gently, and drags his mouth over Diego’s cheek, too tired to bother with a proper kiss to the smooth, pale line of scar tissue on his skin. Diego’s eyes close and under the crappy, too fluorescent light of the motel bathroom, he looks divine. Dean pecks his mouth, just briefly, softly, and lets him wash his hair too.

It’s too soft for their life, for the way they have to be, but it washes over both of them at random intervals, melts them into this syrupy tangle of limbs. It’s too vulnerable, but, God, there’s not much that Dean loves more than these moments.

There’s a small scar on the bottom of Diego’s nape, one of many, and Dean thumbs at it, wears it down into a warm strip of skin that sends goosebumps rising over the rest of Diego’s body. He kisses them away, kisses Diego lazily under the stream with slow, rhythmic movements that lull them into a daze.

They get out before the water runs cold, towel off with gentle hands and dress before getting into the bed. Diego fits himself against his chest and the shirt he’s wearing- one of Dean’s own, worn thin with age and countless Laundromats- is soft under Dean’s palm.

  * ····



Diego doesn’t sleep much that night. He tries not to move around too much so he doesn’t wake up Dean, but that restless feeling of oncoming catastrophe doesn’t leave him until the dogs in someone’s yard outside don’t stop barking. The clock punches 3 am and then he finally drifts off into a slumber, Dean’s hand in his hair and face tucked into the crook of Dean’s neck.

He wakes up again at 8:40, Dean already stretching with a yawn next to him. Everything is muddy with the lack of sleep, but he’s aware of Dean telling him he’s going out to get coffee and to “Get your ass out of bed, Sleeping Beauty.”

He crawls out and beelines it to brush his teeth and splash some water on his face to chase away any remnants of sleep. He gets dressed- jeans, shirt, boots- then sprawls over the couch and turns on the TV, surfing channels until Dean comes back.

He’s carrying three coffees and a frown when he surveys their room and finds Diego as the only occupant.

“Terry didn’t come by?” He asks.

“No,” Diego shakes his head, “why?”

Dean scratches the back of his head. “I knocked on his door to tell him to come here for coffee before I left.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. I thought he gets tongue-tied like you in the mornings.”

“I don’t get tongue-tied,” Diego protests.

“Not the point, but you so do,” Dean tells him.

Diego only dignifies that with an eye-roll. Dean is right though; Terry should’ve been here by now, tongue-tied or not.

“I’ll go check on him,” he finds himself saying and stands up.

“I’ll go with you,” Dean says, leaving the coffees on the table and already moving to the door.

There’s nobody outside and Terry’s truck is still parked in its spot from last night. Diego knocks on the door of Terry’s room, but no response comes. He pounds his fist against the wood harder, adds, “Terry! You up?” to it.

Again, no response.

He sighs and scruffs the toe of his boot against the faint claw marks on the floor. He exchanges a look with Dean and then crouches and takes Dean’s offered lock-picking set. He’s got it open in no time because motel rooms suck when it comes to limited access and quality locks-

And when he swings the door open and takes a step inside the room, he almost steps into a pool of blood.

“Fuck!” He swears, side-stepping it in the last moment and taking in the scene in front of him. The smell of copper hits him, the room decorated in blood spray pattern. On the bed, drenched in blood that just barely dried around the edges, Terry’s body lies motionless and gutted.

“Oh, Jesus fuck,” Dean blurts out behind him, squeezes inside the room and closes the door behind them.

They stand there in silence for a long moment, shock a palpable thing in the air while they stare at the corpse on the far end of the room. After a while, they turn to each other and Dean says sarcastically, “Well, this is just fucking great.”

And Diego couldn’t agree with him more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1st note: this is not an indication of this series coming to an end or anything but I just wanted to let you guys know how much I appreciate every last one of you. No matter if you've been here since the start and decided to stick around or if you were just brave enough to tackle this series 5, 10, or 13 fics in, I'm so happy and grateful that you gave this series- and me- a chance. So yeah, love y'all. <3 <3 <3
> 
> 2nd note: Soooo. Does anyone know what happened to Terry and why?? ;)


	5. 5.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clears throat awkwardly* Right, sorry for delay. Yeah, I... kinda fell into an atla hole.... Oppsie. At least I'm consistent with my suckiness lol XD
> 
> But anyway, here's the update. Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

They drive out into the country, too late in the morning to make it not-risky, and start digging. They had to pack up- their stuff, Terry’s stuff, Terry- and ditch the motel before the cleaner came by. The room couldn’t be salvaged; too much blood and not enough time or the bleach.

Diego doesn’t feel present for the funeral; or the second-best they could do with the limited time and exposed like this. He’s caught somewhere in-between, drifting hazily above his own body with a grim realization.

“I knew this would happen,” he says into the flames.

Next to him, Dean jerks. “What?”

“In the graveyard. Something was not right, I could just feel it,” Diego says and looks down at the phone in his hand- Terry’s. “And last night too. I couldn’t sleep, like I could tell something bad was about to happen.”

“Like a hunch?”

“I- kinda. But…also not. I don’t know, Dean.”

The fire crackles and they lapse into silence, Sun not quite all the way up but already beating against the backs of their necks. Terry’s things are still in the backseat and they still haven’t decided what to do with them.

Dean shuffles closer but it’s Diego who leans against his shoulder and closes the distance between the two of them.

Terry’s phone rings. Diego looks at the screen and “Ron” flashing from the caller’s ID. He answers and is greeted by silence.

Someone swallows heavily, takes in a shuddering breath.

“You’re Terry’s brother?”

Inhale. Another swallow. Finally, “Yeah. Is- is he…” The words are slurred and the question stays unfinished.

“I’m sorry,” Diego says.

“You’re that Winchester’s boy? You’ve been working with him?” Ron asks.

“Um, no, I’m Diego. I’m Dean’s partner. But we were working with him,” Diego says. The flame keeps snapping, flicking up into the sky. “Look, we have your brother’s things here. Do you, um, do you want something or-“

“Did you burn him?”

“Yeah, we did.”

“Burn his stuff too. Smarter,” Ron says thickly. Diego thinks he’s drunk and he’s glad Ron didn’t ask if his brother suffered.

“Yeah. Okay,” he agrees. He doesn’t feel Ron’s grief as such; can’t phantom it because no grief is the same. But he remembers copper and dust on his tongue, tears burning tracks down his cheeks. He remembers Luther holding onto him so tight he thought he’d crush him while Diego screamed himself hoarse, trying to break free and run into the crater of wreckage where Ben was moments ago. And he remembers finally realizing that they’re not invincible. Dad wanted soldiers and superheroes but they were just kids. And bad shit just happened unprompted; they couldn’t stop it.

His chest aches with a dull reminder and he clears his throat, pushing through.

“Listen, did your brother tell you anything about this hunt? Or about what could’ve killed-“

“Hellhounds,” Ron says. “Hellhounds fucking got him. Fucking idiot.”

_Shit._

Dean glances into the pyre grimly. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Quite literally.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Diego says again, words flashing from a billboard in his mind’s eye- because he doesn’t know what else to say to that.

“Yeah,” Ron says. He sobs out a curse, “Fuck,” ripping out of his throat like it hurts and hangs up.

Diego stares at the screen for a second, feels like he’s standing in Terry’s shoes, like he took his place in the world for this one, fleeting moment. An imposter.

He takes the phone apart in as many pieces as possible and then chucks it into the flames. Then he goes to help Dean with the rest of Terry’s earthly possessions.

  * ····



They shake it off before lunch. Sweep it under the rug like a thick coating of dirt that they’ll feel under their feet whenever they step over it for a long while because they can’t afford it to be any other way. They have a hunt to finish. And now they’re on a time limit; they have to finish this tonight and get the hell out of here. With just the two of them, they won’t manage to salt and burn all the graves they have left. It was a fucking miracle they haven’t been caught last night anyway.

“We won’t be fast enough,” Dean tells him, biting into a fry like it insulted him.

“I know,” Diego says, scans his eyes over the diner. It’s a different one, across the town; lights warm and family photos hung up on caramel-colored walls.

Dean sighs and takes a bite of his bacon cheeseburger. Diego steals a sip of his beer, follows it with a sip of his milkshake to scrape off the taste.

There’s just no-

A high pitched giggle has his eyes snapping to a table of high school girls. They are squeezed around a phone screen, whispering excitedly to each other. Well. Most of them are; there’s one, edge seat, who’s looking like she’d rather be anywhere but here. Her eyes are downcast, skin pale under light make-up. Her fingers fidget with a braided bracelet around her wrist.

“Fuck me sideways,” Diego blurts out quietly.

Dean makes a noise in his throat like he just inhaled his gross yeast water and says, “Wha- oh, that wasn’t an invitation.”

Diego spares a second to toss him an indulgent, fond look and, “Maybe later,” with a wink before subtly jerking his head towards the girl.

Dean looks, squinting lightly until Diego tells him, “The first girl on the right, wrist.” Then his eyes widen just a fraction and he turns back to look at Diego.

“No freaking way,” he says.

  * ····



Diego thanks whatever made-up god there is for having their fake FBI IDs on them at the moment.

They finish their lunch and then wait in the parking lot outside the diner, leaning against the Impala’s side, until the girls come out.

They squint at the Sun and then start whispering when they notice them.

They push away from the car and make their way towards the group.

“Hi, there,” Dean says, “we’re agents Burton and Mustaine with FBI. Mind if we ask you a few questions?”

“I thought that FBI is old bald dudes in suits;” one of the girls comments, looking them over.

Dean grins, says, “Yeah, well, old dudes gotta retire someday, don’t they?”

That gets giggle out of them.

“So about those questions,” Dean continues.

“Sure,” the same girl says with a shrug, “What do you want to know?”

“The two boys that died recently, you girls know either of them?”

The mood shifts, sobers up.

“Sorta. From like, passing, but we weren’t friends or anything,” the girl says, others nodding along.

Diego keeps his eyes on the bracelet girl; she’s gone sickly pale, eyes down, fingers twisting around the threads on her wrist.

“Right. Can you tell us anything about them?” Dean asks next.

A new girl, her hair covered with red strands, says, “Not much. I mean, everyone knew _of_ Danny, the football team is pretty popular at school, but he didn’t hang out with a lot of people. He seemed nice though. And I only saw Nick in hallways, I didn’t even know his name until…after.”

Bracelet girl suddenly clamps a hand over her mouth, complexion gone green and pasty. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles out and then beelines back to the diner, towards the restroom.

“Liz!” One of the girls shouts after her but Diego is already moving.

“I’ll go check up on her, you finish up here. I’m sure she’s okay.”

He hastily flashes his badge at the waitress and the occupants on his way to the ladies’ room. As soon as he’s inside, his face scrunches up in sympathy at the sounds of retching.

“Liz,” he calls softly, “I’m, ah, agent Mustaine. You doing okay?”

She groans in response.

Diego waits her out, handing her some paper towels once she gets out, blonde hair sticking to her sweaty skin. She only glances at him to say thanks. She wipes her mouth, starts washing her hands.

Diego has to be fast, has to get the answers before Dean runs out of questions outside and the girls come in to check on their friend.

“So you knew Danny and Nick?”

She jerks, looks up at him with wide eyes. “I don’t-“

Diego looks pointedly at her bracelet. There’s no doubt it’s the part of the set with the two others.

“Oh,” she deflates, squeezes the water out of the colorful fabric, and then wipes her fingers against the thigh of her jeans. Her eyebrows furrow and she sniffles, eyes watering. “Yeah,” she admits.

Diego waits a bit, but when it becomes clear that she’s not going to elaborate on that, he says, “You gotta tell me if you know something that would help us.”

She frowns, wipes off her tears. “They drowned.”

“In their bedrooms? With no water in sight?” He asks, trying to get her to see how insane that is.

She sniffles again.

“Liz, please.”

She starts picking at the threads, blue, green, purple. “Danny wanted to go swimming. So we- we went to the old Kinley’s property. They’ve got a lake there, away from the road, and nobody would call the cops on us or could see us there since nobody lives there anymore.”

“Why not?”

She shrugs, “Don’t know. I think- I think his daughter died or something and then he just moved away without selling the place. It was before I was born.”

“Okay,” Diego says, “and you three went swimming there?”

Liz nods. “Yeah. Well, just Danny and Nick, I didn’t want to because the water was too cold.” She laughs sadly, like she regrets it now, finds it stupid.

“But something weird happened,” she says, eyes flitting about like she’s scared or thinks he wouldn’t believe her.

“Weird how?”

Her shoulders hunch up defensively. “They were inside the lake, swimming, and like… something- something tried to pull them in.”

Diego blinks. “What do you mean?”

Liz chews at her bottom lip. “I saw a shape from the dock. Just something dark and blurry in the water and when it got close to them, they just…they just started trashing. Said they felt something touch their legs and got out. They thought it was the other, messing with them but…”

“But you knew it was something else. You have seen it.”

“Yeah,” she whispers quietly.

She keeps picking the threads, making a mess of them before smoothing them out again with care. “It’s not- they wouldn’t understand it here,” she tells him suddenly, peering up at him shyly, eyes earnest. “But it was nice while it lasted.”

Diego doesn’t have a response to that. He doesn’t know how to tell her that nice things generally don’t last long and that bad shit usually happens to nice people without crushing her. She doesn’t need that right now.

Instead, he tells her, “Thank you.”


	6. 6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shuffles in sheepishly* So. Hi. I live. I'm on a vacation?? I guess lol And the seaside is not going easy on my productivity but I have the final chapter of this installment. I hope to start the next one soon but, uh, yeah.  
> Edit: as I was writing the end not, a fucking mosquito bit me on the heel. Those little fuckers.
> 
> Let me know what you think and enjoy! :)

Sunlight hits him like a spear through the eye when he emerges from the diner, pushed aside by the group of girls Dean kept distracted while he was dealing with Liz.

“Anything?” Dean asks him as soon as Diego’s within the earshot.

He nods, gives a dry chuckle. “Yeah, I think we’ll be on the road by the nightfall.”

“Alright!” Dean cheers, tapping his palm on Impala’s rooftop happily. He looks Diego over, a quick flicker of his eyes, then asks, “Why the long face then?”

Diego shrugs and catches him up on the whole story on their way to the town’s records archive.

“Jesh,” Dean says when Diego’s done talking.

“Yeah. So. I’m thinking, you’d have to be in contact with the water from the lake for the ghost to be able to, well. Have any power over you.”

Dean hums. “It was probably pissed that they managed to escape in the first place, too.”

Diego nods, glad that while he was kinda right about there being someone else, Liz is not in harm’s way.

Kinley’s property, they find out, is a neat square of land almost isolated from the town. It’s too small for any profitable industrial or farming business, but there are a house and stables and a lake and a bit of land. And it’s all abandoned.

“What do we have on the daughter?” Dean asks, looking at the records over Diego’s shoulder, warm against his back where they almost touch.

“Uh, Suzy Kinley, raised to a single parent. She was 13 when she died. According to the police report, she went swimming in the lake and got tangled up in some ropes around the dock. They only found her when her dad saw her foot in the lake. The cause of death was asphyxiation due to water inhalation.”

“Well, that explains it,” Dean comments. “Buried?”

Diego shakes his head. “Cremated. And- oh. Please, guess what they did with her ashes.”

Dean squints at him. “Don’t tell me. Into the lake?”

“Into the fucking lake.”

“ _Great._ ”

  * ····



“Okay,” Dean starts around a mouthful of Funyons, one arm loosely hooked over the wheel, “the good thing is there’s no grave digging. The bad thing is- what the fuck do we set on fire now?”

Diego bites down on an almond, says, “No idea.”

Cremation always means there’s more figurative digging to be done. Ghosts are tied to something. Until they find what it is, they can’t do shit about the ghost except chuck some salt at them.

“Whatever it is, at least it’s still here,” he says.

“Yeah, no way she’d be able to pull this all off if whatever it is was wherever her dad moved to,” Dean agrees. “At least it narrows it down.”

“Yeah. What could it even be? Something she gave to her best friend? A favorite book that was donated to the library?”

Dean groans. “Ugh, no clue, dude.”

Diego fishes another almond from the bag, tosses it in his mouth. “Maybe it’s something still on the property that ties her dow-“

Suddenly, Dean whips his head to look at him, cries, “Diego, you fucking genius! Ties!”

“Uh,” Diego starts, not sure how to continue. Because clearly, Dean has finally lost his mind.

“The ropes! She was literally tied down,” Dean explains at his bewildered expression.

“Oh,” Diego blinks. “You think the ropes are still there?”

“I sure hope they are,” Dean says. And then he curls his palm around the back of Diego’s neck and pulls him into a quick, giddy kiss.

It’s always nice to see Dean so genuinely delighted- but Diego can taste the fucking onions and he breaks the kiss with, “Argh, Dean, that’s disgusting!”

Dean starts cackling.

  * ····



They don’t have to make a stop for salt and petroleum is the kicker. They really don’t; there’s plenty left from the night Terry and Diego went to stock up. Even with the amount they used for burning the body and all of Terry’s earthly possessions and his truck, there was enough left for a length of wet rope. The thing is, well, that they…kind of forgot about it.

So they make a pit stop at the store. Diego snatches a can of petrol and Dean grabs a pack of salt- and as they’re paying, a tow truck gets its clutches on the Impala.

“Oh, hell, no,” Dean says, shoving the money and the salt at Diego before storming out.

Diego pays awkwardly, both him and the cashier not-so-subtly glancing at the scene outside every few seconds as they exchange dollar bills and change.

“Thanks,” Diego says absently when the bag is thrust at him over the counter. And then he races out before Dean decks the poor guy.

He’s in the guy’s face by the time Diego reaches him, kept away only by the beer belly protruding on the guy’s front, stretching his greasy shirt painfully.

“-find you and rip your-“

Diego speed-walks the last couple of steps as soon as he can hear him, clears his throat and says, “Dean.”

He touches Dean’s elbow, pulls him back.

The guy, though, doesn’t look bothered at all. He says lazily, “You’re illegally parked. You can pick up your car in the yard.”

Dean says, “Okay, great. How about I just fucking pay you right now and we go our separate ways?”

“No.”

Dean’s eye twitches and he lunges forward. Diego locks elbows with him and swings him to the side before the disaster happens.

“Okay, that’s- Dean, deep breaths,” he says, then whispers, “we don’t have time for murder.”

That helps, it seems, because Dean deflates. He still points a finger at the tow guy, says threateningly, “If I find a single scratch, you’ll be scraping your balls off the asphalt.”

The guy says, “Yeah,” and then waddles into his truck before driving off, Impala rolling behind it.

They watch it disappear behind the corner and then Dean sighs heavily and angrily.

“Son of a bitch,” he mutters and snatches the bag from Diego's hand- not out of courtesy, because he’s still an ass like that- to swing it with violent vigor.

“We need that stuff,” Diego reminds him, “so try not to fling it into the Sun.”

“If that jerkface leaves a mark-“

Diego rolls his eyes, “Your car’s gonna be fine. We have a ghost to kill, remember?”He looks down the street and sighs, “And we have a long fucking walk ahead of us.”

Dean grumbles and kicks a pebble. Then, they start walking.

  * ····



The Sun changes its position in the sky by the time they reach the Kinley’s property. There’s a metal fence, rusted at the hinges and squeaking when they push it open. From there, a gravel road winds its way towards a two-story house, paint washed-out and peeling, white a long time ago and now almost a dirty sepia.

Dean blows the air out loudly when they stop in front of the porch steps, stance wide and hands on his hips, like that’s gonna help him cool off.

“So, uh, are we gonna check inside?” He asks.

Diego swipes the back of his hand over his forehead, swallows. “Fuck, sure,” he says, thinking that if nothing else, at least it’s going to be colder inside than here in the Sun.

They trudge up the steps, the bag with petrol and salt swinging back and forth between their knees and the boards creaking beneath their feet.

The door opens easily, the lock obviously battered and already tampered with enough that it gives without any effort. Diego would bet that Liz, Danny, and Nick weren’t the first ones to think of this place for their hangout spot.

The air inside is thick and stale with dust, and they separate to quickly make their way through the house. There’s nothing personal left, only furniture stained with beer and snacks, walls scrawled with graffiti and wallpaper haphazardly torn. Diego finds it strangely depressing; someone’s home, a space filled with love and memories, being so carelessly torn into pieces.

He moves upstairs to find Dean in one of the bedrooms, staring up at the ceiling. He shifts his gaze to the door when he hears Diego approaching.

“Found something?”

Diego shakes his head. “Not a thing. You?”

Dean clicks his tongue negatively.

Diego drags his eyes over the room, the bare metal bed-frame nestled between the massive wooden closet and an ornate bedside table, on the wall to the right, there’s a pale spot where a photograph used to hang.

“Ugh,” Dean says, shuddering, “this place is depressing as fuck. Let’s go.”

Diego only hums in agreement and they stomp their way out, just about ready to be done with this case. Diego thinks it’s fair to say it has been a shitshow this far.

They’re at the front door when the sound of a car engine reaches their ears. They exchange a confused look and look outside just in time to see a station wagon zoom past the house and down the road further into the property.

“Was that…?”

“Liz.”

“Shit.”

They start running.

  * ····



“Fucking. Goddamn. Tow truck,” Dean wheezes out once the station wagon and the lake come into view.

The dock; or, now that Diego thinks about it, is it a pier? Diego doesn’t know the difference between the two, but he thinks there is one- but anyway, the _thing_ is right there, standing steadily above the water, and at its end, Liz is looking out at the peaceful surface of the lake.

“Liz!” Diego hollers.

She spins on her heels to face them. But her foot slips, knocks her off-balance, and sends her toppling into the lake.

“Oh, fuck,” Dean says, endearingly heroic and already shucking off his jacket when Diego stops him.

“Wha-“

“Hey, I’m the one who doesn’t have to breathe,” he says with a rueful grin, squeezing Dean’s shoulder.

“We don’t know if your powers work against ghosts!” Dean protests.

“Yeah, but between the two of us, my chances at surviving this are better,” he responds, tosses his jacket on the grass and turns towards the dock/pier thingy.

“Be ready to pull her up and torch this rope!” He yells over his shoulder and runs towards the lake.

He can see the blur that is Liz for a split second before he dives in head-first, trashing against the invisible bonds. The water is murky, the Sun only sending strings of light to pierce through the shadows all around them.

Liz is kicking up the mud from the bottom of the lake, trying to get free and get some air. The panic- this type- is unfamiliar to Diego, desperate and frantic in a way that he can’t relate to, but he doesn’t dwell on it. He grabs onto her wrist, her upper arm, and through a curtain of air bubbles, she recognizes him, allows him to yank her upwards with a shove from the lake’s bottom for leverage.

He sees the shadows move around them but keeps steering Liz towards the surface, towards the blur of Dean’s silhouette. They break out with a greedy gasp of air from Liz, gulping down air and sobbing in tandem, clutching desperately at Dean’s offered hand.

Diego keeps one hand around one of the pillars holding up the whole structure while he helps Dean pull Liz up to the dry land. When they manage it, Dean leads her away from the water, closer to her car and Diego dives back in for the rope.

He sees it, tethered to one of the pillars, and winded around another one, twisting and floating weightlessly. He slips a blade from his belt and starts cutting into it, the threads giving easily, softened and worn-down with water and age. He untangles it with ease, mind clear and lungs still, fingers steady while they wind it around his palm loosely.

He kicks away from the pillar and reemerges to the surface. Dean’s already there, taking the sopping wet rope from his hand and throwing it on the grass just on the lake’s edge before starting to open the salt package.

Diego thinks he’ll make it; he’s already waist-up on the wood, Dean just a few steps away when something colder than ice grasps his ankle in an iron grip and yanks him back.

“Diego!” He hears along with the thud of Dean’s knees against the wooden boards, feels Dean’s palm sliding over his own in a futile attempt to catch him before he fully goes under.

He sees her for the first time then. Suzy is small and pale; limbs lanky and bones protruding under her paper-thin skin. Her hair swims feather-light around her face, dark and seemingly silky in the water and her eyes are terrified and furious. Diego almost feels bad for her; glimpses a bit of something painfully familiar when the light hits her right.

She holds him down by his shoulders, bony fingers digging into his flesh like claws. There’s no air left in her lungs, so Diego can see her mouth moving clearly, repeating _Help,_ and _I can’t breathe_.

He sympathizes with her on a detached kind of a level.

When it becomes clear to her that he’s not suffering, her face twists into a snarl and her small, delicate hands wrap around his throat. Her touch is bruising and cold, numbing his skin, but Diego keeps eye contact with her, thinks, _I can wait you out, I’ve got all the time, Suzy._

She shakes him- and then the water around her starts boiling, sending warmth into Diego. She lets go of him, twists in a soundless scream of anguish as she starts sizzling at the edges, pieces of her breaking off and floating around her, black as tar, before disintegrating.

Diego stays put, hands on the pillar to keep him still until she disappears completely, drifting up towards the surface. He follows then, pushing off the muddy floor and breaking into an oxygenated atmosphere with a whoosh of water.

“Diego!” He hears as his fingers curl over the edge of the dock/pier. He heaves himself up and Dean thunders over the boards to help haul him up by the belt; even though Diego is fine, aside from a few possible bruises as farewell gifts from Suzy.

“I’m good,” he says, making eye contact for a second before shaking the water out of his hair. He’s wet through and through, feels like he weighs a ton with all the wet layers clinging to him.

Dean lets out a relieved sigh and sets his palm over the crook of Diego’s neck, fingers brushing his jaw. And then he tells him, “You stink of seafood.”

Diego flips him off.

“At least you don’t have to worry about me stinking up your car.”

“… _dude_. Low fucking blow, Diego.”

  * ····



Liz is fine. Once they get off the dock/pier (swear to God, he’s gonna look it up because now it’s bugging the hell out of him), they find her sitting on the backseat of the station wagon, a scratchy-looking, old blanket draped over her shoulders and clutched between her fingers.

(Well. Dean walks off the dock/pier. Diego squelches off with _every. Single. Step_.)

She’s looking between the two of them, eyes wide and just barely processing everything they just saw.

“What kind of FBI agents are you?” She asks them incredulously.

They look at each other- Diego wringing out his topmost layer, a sweater, in his hands- and then Dean tells her, awkwardly, ”Fake ones.”

She blinks at them, lets out a shuddering breath, and buries her face in her hands, the blanket falling off her back in the process.

“That’s- Yeah, that sounds about right.”

Dean turns to Diego and makes an “oops” face. They give her a second to have a meltdown in peace and then Diego decides he wants out of these clothes as soon as possible.

He clears his throat and says, “So. Uh, can we hitch a ride with you?”

Liz shrugs, doesn’t look up yet. “Why not. Where to?”

“Tow yard?” Dean asks hopefully.

“Yeah, sure,” she says and finally looks at them. She stands up and glances down at Diego, down at herself, over her shoulder at the wet puddle on the seat.

She sighs. “My mom’s gonna kill me.”

  * ····



Liz leaves them to fend for themselves once she drops them by the fence surrounding the yard. It’s not connected to a generator, and there’s no spiked wire on top, so they climb over with ease- if only in discomfort in Diego’s case.

No dogs either, which is a blessing and practically the universe smiling down on them at this point.

They navigate their way through the maze of cars and trucks and tractors until Dean catches sight of Impala, gleaming and shinning like a plate of beacon if the way Dean races to her is anything to go by.

“Oh, Baby, I’m so sorry for leaving you,” he says, plastered over the driver’s door and petting the roof lovingly.

“Wow,” Diego says.

Dean looks at him over his shoulder, not a grain of embarrassment in his expression. “You wouldn’t understand it.”

Diego lifts his hands in surrender and heads for the trunk.

“Keys,” he says, catches them when Dean tosses them to him.

He changes into first dry clothes he can get his hands on quickly; feeling gross enough that he just takes Dean’s when he realizes he has the wrong duffle. His boots are absolutely drenched, still filled with water, so he just chucks them in the trunk and pads barefoot to the passenger side with a pair of socks in one hand.

“You, ah, need another minute or can we leave this damn town already?” He asks.

“You’re so impatient,” Dean grumbles half-heartedly, but gets into the car without a fuss.

Diego watches him in amusement as he turns on the engine and strokes his hand over the dashboard as the car rumbles to life.

He’s putting on his right sock, leg up on the seat (it’s allowed as long as he’s not wearing footwear) and they are _this_ close to leaving the yard when they both notice a plump figure by the entrance.

“Oh ho ho,” Dean cackles gleefully and hits the gas. For a hysterical second, Diego thinks he’s gonna run over the poor bastard.

But then he lefts one hand from the wheel and gives the guy a middle finger as they whiz past him.

Diego snorts, feeling an absurd amount of affection wash over him in an instant because Dean is ridiculous and Diego absolutely adores him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dock/pier thing did, in fact, bug me. So a greatly simplified difference; a pier is the raised structure held by pillars or piles above a body of water, and can be used for fishing, docking boats, to support buildings, etc. and a dock is apparently the raised structure like a pier or it can be the *water* between two piers. *throws hands up*
> 
> A teeny tiny hint for the next installment: Dean and Diego will finally acquire a brain cell in the form of a human being ;)


End file.
